Confessions of a GP, by Dr Benjamin Daniels (Pseudonym), provides a light hearted look into the day to day life of a British doctor working in general practice.
The book starts with the young Benjamin’s aspirations. His desire to be the hero of the moment. Being called upon to perform an emergency tracheotomy with nothing more than a biro and god like skills.
He then takes us on a brief tour of his journey through medical school, through the trials and tribulations of being a junior doctor, arriving at a GP’s typical working day, which as you might expect is far from glamorous.
Each chapter of the book looks at a particular patient, or case, and from there the author shares his thoughts and experiences. He is quite honest about the presumptions he makes about people and his feelings towards them, whilst at the same time acknowledging the mistakes he has made during the course of his career, and the occasions when he has been wrong.
He takes a look at some of the issues and challenges faced by GP’s within the NHS, and offers a pretty reasoned argument on his personal position, which is pretty much about self preservation, from what I can tell.
Having a quite deep routed fear of doctors myself but a pretty good relationship with my own GP I found this book quite refreshing. It wasn’t a rant about how broken the system was, but did acknowledge that there are problems. It also served as a reminder to me that Doctors are human beings too, and have to contend with there own emotions and beliefs.
I’d recommend this book as a lighthearted read, suitable for that train journey or short haul flight. I read the electronic version of the book on my iPad which is available for the Apple book store, but it is also available from Amazon (Affiliate Link at the top of the page).
